The Official Fuel Prices Thread

This is a discussion on The Official Fuel Prices Thread within The Indian Car Scene, part of the BHP India category; @naveenroy and deepv, agree with you completely.
We are taken for a ride by the self proclaimed "Chaiwala" and are ...

@naveenroy and deepv, agree with you completely.
We are taken for a ride by the self proclaimed "Chaiwala" and are reaping the acche din. Wonderful. This is how the learned Finance minister proposes to curb inflation.
Some master-strokes
1) Increasing service tax to 14.5% (from 12.36%)
2) Not reducing petrol/diesel prices in line with global prices
3) Personal items duty free limited to Rs 45,000. What can we bring in Rs 45,000?
4) Denying LPG at lower rates for people earning above Rs 10L. I dont call it subsidised as there is no transparency in how they arrived at the LPG gas cylinder rate.

There are several initiatives of Jatropha fuel (For example in Satyabhama university, Chennai), bio-fuel etc. No surprise that their efforts have been shut by the oil tax dependant governments.

Hope the upcoming Assam elections (126 assembly seats) in May teaches the central government some lessons. Already they are weak in Rajyasabha.

Probably so that the MPs/ministers can clock up even more than the 900+ km/day on their luxury SUVs that is being reported now - to tend to their constituencies!

That is equal to if not more than an average taxi or state transport bus will travel.

Quote:

Originally Posted by sgiitk

My son lived in Haryana and works in Delhi. When the difference was marginal, then he preferred buying Petrol in Gurgaon, then when it crossed ₹2 he started buying in Delhi (MG Road), now he may consider switching back. In any case when looking at Delhi (the most subsidized city in India), and Haryana fuel prices in UP look to be a loot.

I will not take up the developers issue since it is political.

I travel from Sector 49, GGN to Okhla in Delhi. My 11 years of car owing experience says it is wiser to buy petrol from Delhi even if it is Rs 2 more than Haryana. Most of the Gurgaon pumps either cheat on quantity or in quality.

Quote:

Originally Posted by manduvindupondu

This is how the learned Finance minister proposes to curb inflation.
Some master-strokes
1) Increasing service tax to 14.5% (from 12.36%)
2) Not reducing petrol/diesel prices in line with global prices
3) Personal items duty free limited to Rs 45,000. What can we bring in Rs 45,000?
4) Denying LPG at lower rates for people earning above Rs 10L. I dont call it subsidised as there is no transparency in how they arrived at the LPG gas cylinder rate.

There are several initiatives of Jatropha fuel (For example in Satyabhama university, Chennai), bio-fuel etc. No surprise that their efforts have been shut by the oil tax dependant governments.

Hope the upcoming Assam elections (126 assembly seats) in May teaches the central government some lessons. Already they are weak in Rajyasabha.

Moreover, how did they arrive at 10L figure? Why not 8 or 12 L? BJP will proudly announce before end of their tenure that they added so many billion of rupees in treasury without disclosing that it was by looting the middle class.
I have always voted for them and this time I think I made a mistake.

Saw/Heard multiple attempts at alternate energy being scuttled by the Oil Ministry (Mafia in laymen parlance)
Will post other links when I come across. In case of efforts by students of Satyabama university (I think in 2013) I heard they were literally arm-twisted /silenced not to commercialize their research.

The biggest opportunity for startups is to discover/invent cost efficient alternate energy to answer the Petrol dependancy. Hope my prayers get answered by some overseas guys, who want to establish their presence in India. Else domestic efforts get silenced.

#sourabhzen; if you want to curb inflation and are given an empty treasury (actually in debt) what do you do. The only way to curb inflation is to aim at a balanced budget. So curb expenditure, and raise taxation. Also, no significant defence purchases for over a decade. Maybe we should go back to the Lathi!!

You are right in cribbing about fuel prices, but most states have defined a floor VAT, so they are not losing any money in reduced supply prices, but they are now increasing VAT (why?). A floor VAT is against the basics of Value Added Tax. The Telangana chap wants to spend crores on Havans, Chadar's to Dargahs, etc. and the UP chap wants birthday bashes and safari parks where lions regularly die, and the Delhi chap reduces fuel sales (good), and then is worried by the reduced income, and wants to pay his MLA more than the President of India. I think I heard that Excise started going up fearing that the money will be cornered through VAT otherwise.

As for oil, even today the OMCs cannot produce enough Diesel to feed the 40 odd BS-IV cities. They are forced to buy from RIL or import. What happens when BS-VI comes in after three years. I can hear cries of Ambani & Advani again.

I think alternate energy is not that simple. I worked in the area for over three decades. Solar seems to be going somewhere, but gestation is at least five years. We did not even have coal to feed the existing power plants.

#sourabhzen; if you want to curb inflation and are given an empty treasury (actually in debt) what do you do.

I will certainly not go for increasing excise on fuel to fill my treasury and at the same time allocate budget to atrocious and utterly useless Bullet trains. Telangana doing havan and idiots spending crores in birthday bash are equally criminal moves as launching bullet trains. None of these steps are of any public good.
I will also check my MLAs travel that claims 900 kms per day and see who is paying for their bills. Congress was corrupt and that's why we voted them out. But it seems that they are hardly any better. Problem is we still don't have any alternative except cribbing and being victims

In my opinion, the government isn't doing all that bad. The bullet train ,the metros etc might seem useless to a few people. But at the same time , doesn't one need to think of the employment, investments and in general the development of the nation before criticizing such a move. One can say that the bullet trains, defence investment other infrastructure investments are all useless . But at the end of the day all these create jobs and money for our economy. And the government needs money to spend on activities like this for which we are taxed.

Some of us even brag about the things we see abroad and telling others about how good things are out there, wouldn't it be good if we can implement some of it here.
I agree that some drain might be happening and there maybe a few bunch of idiots in our ministry ..But overall I feel the PM and the finance minister are doing the right things and our economy would fare a lot better if some more key billed are passed.

This is just my two cents and people can feel to correct me wherever they feel I am wrong

I will certainly not go for increasing excise on fuel to fill my treasury and at the same time allocate budget to atrocious and utterly useless Bullet trains.

Bullet trains - the same was said about the GQ when it started. We have one major problem, animals loitering on tracks. As a result 160kph (100mph) is about the limit. Imagine a 'holy' cow being killed by a speeding train! So for going any higher we need better and fenced tracks. Also, due to the Lalu and Mamata factors (no additional revenue) railway tracks are in a pathetic state. So might as well bite the bullet and go for the next generation - bullets. Now how to you pay for additional expenditure - print notes!! Also, due to St Antony defence procurement has been stuck for over a decade. How do we fight ISIL - with canes and paper planes I guess.

What remains to be seen is what happens when crude goes up? Will the Govt. roll back the jacked up excise duty or the hike will be again passed to the end consumers? If the second happens, it will really be very unfortunate and unfair.

Even the end to end of the country can be achieved in 30 hours. I wonder how many people travel Trivandrum to Jammu daily, or Okha to Dibrugarh (Lumding to be precise). It is an optimum solution, not perfect.
It can be achieved by incremental funding, not exhorbitant funding as bullet trains.
I believe in Maslow's hierarchy. Dreaming, aspiring and achieving is fine but in 70 (Practical)-30 (Dreaming) ratio.
We have more mobiles than toilets. I agree with sourabhzen that our alternatives are limited.
@sgiitk, I agree states have disappointed a lot. Goa is an exception in petrol pricing. It was sold at 55 p/l when it was 75 across the country. VAT effect.
Our day to day life depend on the state gov a lot. Land, Police, Judiciary, Property tax, industrial licenses etc etc are all state subjects.
Most of the states have disappointed.
The Centre has disappointed too. Not hiking the taxes was a basic expectation from the Centre. If they do not adhere, wonder what differentiates them from earlier gov. Cutting down expenditure and efficient fiscal management was the key.

Sorry for the rant (Aranya Rodana in Telugu), but we may end up with disappointments at the end of this Centre rule.
Being an optimist, My hope is in Startups, North- East turned to a manufacturing hub (With the Indo-Thailand road to be operative soon, we have great opportunities), small states being pro-business, BIMARU states curbing population and/or empowering them.

Delhi-Kolkata is already 17 hours or so by Rajdhani and/or Duronto. Delhi-Mum is similar. So nothing new, it is already there. The Delhi-Kol route is over saturated with some train every five minutes or so. So yes, incl operational stops we are around the 90 kph mark. Delhi-Bhopal Shatabdi tops out at 140 kph! Some of the routes suggested like Mum-Mangalore may not be technically and politically feasible. Before the Konkan Railway (still single track) came it was a real long haul with a circuitous route. I remember Mangala taking almost three days for Mangalore - Jhansi against 28 hours now.

Now if we had Delhi-Kol Bullet it will become under five-six hours, City Centre to City Centre. So it is Air Travel which will be hit. Take the impact of the TGV in Europe, it is air travel which has suffered. I again say the reaction to Bullets is exactly same as was to the GQ. In fact after the demise of the ABV govt the next dispensation almost put a stop to the GQ and then realized it was already too vital.